LONDON (ShareCast) - After a moderately buoyant morning session, UK shares raced ahead in the afternoon, encouraged by a very strong showing on Wall Street.

The mineral extractors blazed the trail after moderately encouraging manufacturing data from China. China's official purchasing managers' index (PMI) rose to 50.3 in December from 49 in November; a value above 50 indicates an expansion in business activity.

UK economic data was more mixed. UK business confidence on economic prospects dived in December to its lowest level since January 2009, according to a survey by Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets. The bank's index retreated to -23 in December from -20 in November.

On the upside, new export orders rose for the first time in five months in December, reflecting increased levels of new work from clients in Germany, East Europe and China.

The seasonally adjusted Markit/CIPS UK manufacturing sector purchasing managers´ index (PMI) for the month of December has come in at 49.6 points, comfortably above the 47.7 registered in the month before. The consensus estimate had been for a fall to 47.3.

Major miners

Talvivaara Mining saw its share price rocket into the top spot on the FTSE 250 after it announced that it has reached its production target for 2011.

Full year production totalled 16,087 tonnes (t) of nickel and 31,815t of zinc, while fourth quarter production of 4,769t nickel and 10,524t zinc was a new quarterly record.

Elsewhere in the mining sector, a bitter legal battle appears to be brewing between FTSE 100 mining firm Anglo American and the Chilean, state-owned copper miner Codelco. Anglo says it has received a letter from Codelco seeking to exercise an option to buy a 49% stake in Anglo American Sur, a huge copper mining plant in Chile that Anglo has spent billions upgrading. On December 22nd, Anglo filed a legal complaint for breach of contract over what it describes as an “illegitimate premature attempt to exercise the option.” Both firms say they are willing to work to a negotiated settlement.

M'learned friends are also going to be called upon to sort out the massive fall-out between integrated oil giant BP and US oilfield services outfit Halliburton.

In a filing at a court in New Orleans BP said the American oilfield services firm should pick up the tab for the clean up operation resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, which could come to as much as $60bn.

Contract wins

Support services firm Carillion has kicked off 2012 with a contract on the Birmingham section of the M6 motorway. The £104.9m contract is to transform the section of the M6 between junctions 5 and 8 into a so-called managed motorway. Managed motorways use various technological features combined with new operating procedures to actively control traffic flow. This includes variable mandatory speed limits and opening up the hard shoulder to traffic to reduce congestion and improve journey times and safety.

Balfour Beatty, the international infrastructure group, has been appointed as the preferred bidder for the £800m Essex Waste Partnership's Residual Waste Treatment contract.

Other news

African oil producer Afren said end-year production at its Ebok, Okoro and Côte d'Ivoire operations has topped previous guidance. As a result of the ramp up in production at the Ebok field, off the coast of Nigeria, aggregate net working interest production attributable to Afren has reached a rate of circa 55,400 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd). A production rate above the year-end target of 50,000 boepd has been sustained since 19 December 2011 from the Ebok, Okoro and Côte d'Ivoire operations.

Toumaz, an AIM listed company which designs ultra low-power wireless systems jumped after spinning off a new subsidiary in which chip-designer Imagination Technologies will take a 25% stake.

Another tiddler on the rise is Powerhouse Energy, the AIM listed waste-to-energy company has announced it is to buy the remaining 70% of its technology licensor, Pyromex, for a maximum of £33m.

On the broker front, French banking group SocGen has given the thumbs up to energy giant BG Group while Bank of America Merrill Lynch has upgraded retail bellwether Marks & Spencer to "neutral" from "underperform".

Barclays got a lift from Citi, which reiterated a 'buy' recommendation on the UK bank while ratcheting up its target price to 245p from 230p.

FTSE 100 - Risers
Kazakhmys (KAZ) 1,015.00p +9.49%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 1,305.00p +7.41%
Essar Energy (ESSR) 183.00p +6.77%
Glencore International (GLEN) 418.15p +6.67%
Rio Tinto (RIO) 3,325.00p +6.40%
BHP Billiton (BLT) 1,993.00p +6.15%
Eurasian Natural Resources Corp. (ENRC) 673.50p +5.98%
Barclays (BARC) 186.30p +5.82%
IMI (IMI) 803.00p +5.66%
Xstrata (XTA) 1,032.50p +5.57%

FTSE 100 - Fallers
Shire Plc (SHP) 2,225.00p -0.80%
G4S (GFS) 270.50p -0.48%
Standard Life (SL.) 205.50p -0.39%
Kingfisher (KGF) 250.00p -0.28%
Bunzl (BNZL) 883.00p -0.11%

FTSE 250 - Risers
Talvivaara Mining Company (TALV) 255.30p +27.65%
Afren (AFR) 103.20p +20.42%
Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CW.) 18.45p +13.54%
Home Retail Group (HOME) 94.20p +12.95%
Electrocomponents (ECM) 209.40p +11.26%
Logica (LOG) 68.45p +10.94%
Ocado Group (OCDO) 60.15p +10.57%
New World Resources A Shares (NWR) 487.70p +10.12%
Ferrexpo (FXPO) 292.50p +8.82%
International Personal Finance (IPF) 186.20p +8.57%

FTSE 250 - Fallers
Telecom Plus (TEP) 750.00p -2.98%
Telecity Group (TCY) 629.00p -2.78%
SDL (SDL) 650.50p -2.18%
Moneysupermarket.com Group (MONY) 103.10p -1.81%
Bumi (BUMI) 865.00p -1.70%
Bovis Homes Group (BVS) 431.80p -1.68%
Restaurant Group (RTN) 293.00p -1.64%
F&C Asset Management (FCAM) 64.45p -1.53%

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